Current Status of our Projects

In this blog post we want to provide an overview of our projects and how things are coming along. This is also to answer all the questions of those asking for specific series, though it won't really answer much, it will let you know why some things are 'late'.

First of all though, I should very briefly explain the different steps involved in scanlation. If you know how the scanlation process works, you can skip this part and move on to the actual list of series below.

Everything begins with getting the RAWs, ie going out to buy the magazines the series are in and scanning them in. We rely on RAW providers for this - in other words, this step is out of our control. We get RAWs as quickly as possible, and the moment we get them, we begin working on them. If we don't have RAWs for a series, we can't do anything but wait, that's all.

As soon as we have them, we send them to the translators. This is also arguably out of our hands; while the translators are part of our team, they are still individuals who are doing this single task. Think of them like goalkeepers in football, they're part of the team yet have a completely different function.

Simultaneously, we begin cleaning the chapters. All series are published in phone-book sized weekly or monthly magazines, printed on paper of a far worse quality than toilet-paper - which is understandable, seeing how the circulation numbers are in the millions. Either way, cleaning up the images of a standard 18 page long chapter takes about 5-7 hours, usually split between 2-3 cleaners.

Another thing that begins as soon as pages are cleaned is redrawing. Redrawing is basically all about erasing Japanese text that was within the panels, on the art. After erasing it, we fill up the blank spots, usually by re-drawing those parts. Small redraws can take 2-5 minutes, really big and annoying ones that cover half a page with really detailed art can take easily a whole day, but we try our best.

One way to make redrawing easier is typesetting. We can only start doing that after we received the translation, naturally, as typesetting means putting the English text on the pages. We take great care to place the text exactly where the Japanese original was, for stylistic reasons but also to cover up big parts of the spots that need redraws. This isn't always easy, as English text goes left to right while Japanese goes top to bottom.

Except for 2-3 series which have a dedicated proofreader, the typesetters also make sure to quality check the chapter, reading what they are putting in the bubbles and looking out for noise or smudges that were missed during cleaning. And with that, the process is complete, the chapter released and updates about it are posted on the website.

Phew, that look longer than expected, although it was an extremely summarized version. Now, on to our current line-up and their status.

One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Übel Blatt, Attack on Titan, UQ Holder, Area D, Claymore and History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi -> We're all caught up on these series and waiting for the next RAWs.

Green Blood, Hajime no Ippo, ReMember, Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth-> For all these series, we're currently waiting for translations. The Heroic Legend of Arslan -> This series is currently being redrawn. It has very many pages that need redraws and we'd really need 2-3 new, active redrawers who can help out with difficult redraws. Applications are welcome.

Attack On Titan Before The Fall -> We are going to finish the 4th chapter, but will sadly have to drop this great series after. The amount of redraws and difficult to clean pages is too taxing on our already understaffed crew. We may consider picking it back up if we ever find ourselves in a situation where we have plenty of active redrawers.

Dragon Ball SD -> We have decided to drop this one as well. Aside of the redraws, there was also too little interest by both, the staff members and you, the readers, so we decided it be best to let go of it.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei -> We picked this one up on the request of the leader of the group Mangaholic. He's been part of our staff for quite a while, so we did not mind hosting it (with the intention of giving it some extra publicity and attention). Unfortunately he ran into some private difficulties lately, and we wish him the best to recover from it all and hopefully soon return to get this series back on track.

D.Gray-man, Hunter x Hunter -> As far as Hunter x Hunter is concerned, we're still huge fans and will work on it the moment it returns. As for D.Gray-man, I'm not sure if we would pick it back up again or not, but either way, both series are on hiatus right now and we have no information whatsoever when either will return, unfortunately.

That's all! If you have any further questions about the series I mentioned or if I missed any series, let me know in the comments! But please, do not ask us to pick any other series up.

Oh, on that note - there might be a series that we'll pick up very soon. The feedback we received on facebook the other day was very clear and we had a long discussion following it. I won't give it away right now, so stay tuned to find out more about it!